Pelosi Makes Trouble in Prison

Daniel Pelosi is in hot water again, this time at the super-max prison he has been housed in since he was convicted of murder in 2004.
Prison officials have said that Mr. Pelosi has been sentenced to a year in solitary confinement at the upstate facility for allegedly making threatening phone calls from his jail cell. Officials said Mr. Pelosi made threats to a woman identified as his current wife. According to reports, Mr. Pelosi called his wife, the former Jennifer Zolnowski on her cellphone and said, “this is the last vacation you’ll ever take” and “I’m sending some people over to your home.”As part of his punishment, Mr. Pelosi will not be permitted to make phone calls or send or receive packages for a year. He will be confined to a prison cell for 23 hours a day.
In 2004, Mr. Pelosi was found guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Theodore Ammon, a millionaire financier who was found bludgeoned to death at his house on Middle Lane in East Hampton Village in 2001. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He was also convicted of second-degree intimidation of a witness during his trial in Riverhead.
Officials at the supervisor’s office at the Southport Correctional Facility in Pine City, N.Y., declined to answer any questions about Mr. Pelosi’s latest scrape with prison officials and deferred all comments to Linda Foglia, an assistant public information officer in Albany.
According to Mr. Pelosi’s jailhouse behavior reports provided by Ms. Foglia, he called his wife on Nov. 26 through a three-way connection, which is not permitted. At that time, she said he made several “serious threats.” Reports also indicate that Mr. Pelosi admitted to making the calls and the threats.
According to the prison’s Web site, each inmate is permitted to call a maximum of 15 different phone numbers controlled by prison officials. However, those calls are to be placed by prisoners at pay phones inside each housing unit.
Just days before his confinement in the prison’s secure housing unit, Mr. Pelosi was written up by officials for refusing to obey orders, interfering with an employee, and tampering with state property without authorization after he spat an unnamed object into a sink.
This is not Mr. Pelosi’s first trip to solitary confinement according to his records. During the time he was housed at the Clinton Correctional Institute, Mr. Pelosi spent six months in solitary confinement after prison officials discovered that he was using another inmate’s personal identification number to make unauthorized phone calls. He was also overheard setting up an answering machine outside the prison, which he could access at any time. For that, he lost commissary and phone privileges. In all, Mr. Pelosi has been punished eight times for misbehaving.
Ms. Zolnowski herself had been implicated in the intimidation charge Mr. Pelosi eventually pleaded guilty to. She was allegedly videotaped leaving money at a Flanders McDonald’s as payment, Mr. Pelosi told her, for other inmates at the Suffolk County jail intimidating witnesses or jurors in the murder trial. Ms. Zolnowski was not charged, but was named in the indictment.
Mr. Ammon and his wife, Generosa, were days away from a legal divorce when Mr. Ammon was found beaten to death in the East Hampton house. Mr. Pelosi, a former electrician, and Ms. Ammon were married several months later. Mr. Pelosi and Ms. Ammon split before the conviction and she died of breast cancer shortly after the breakup.
Mr. Pelosi and his current wife have a child together, born just before his conviction. The couple was married during Mr. Pelosi’s incarceration at the Clinton Correctional Institute six years ago.
Mr. Pelosi will be held in solitary confinement until November. He will be eligible for parole in 2031 at the age of 67.